Three-O Chocolate Shake

I checked out the Web site to see how to best use this fantastic invention. It wasn’t as icy chilly outside when I made this drink, but it was so good and I highly recommend it:

Blend and enjoy!

I didn’t measure mine out and blended it very well, so it came out to the consistency of a Wendy’s Frosty. I shared the drink with a bunch of guys I was hanging out with that night, and they easily finished the drinks, so it’s not just a girly drink, either. (Though next time, I’d probably save the bottle for girls’ night.)

Here’s another drink recipe from Three Olives that looks amazing, if you’re still in the ice cream kind of mood:

Three Olives chocolate vodka

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

1 ounce Three Olives chocolate vodka
1 ounce Irish cream
1 ounce chocolate liqueur
1 scoop chocolate ice cream

Blend all ingredients in blender. Pour into a hurricane glass. Garnish with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

Costa Rica always gets dark at roughly 6 p.m., every night, every day of the year. So whether you like it or not, outdoor activities like hikes and tours cease, and it’s all about chilling out, going to the bars and drinking.

Imperial beer and sickly sweet "tropicales" juice sit in the same fridge

There’s not a whole lot of variety when it came to beer. There were some malt beers like Mike’s Hard Lemonade or this thing called Rock Ice, which was like water. I did see some Heineken there, as well as Corona occasionally. There was plenty of tequila on hand, as well as vodka- liquor you would normally see at a bar. Sometimes we splurged and had a few margaritas. We were concerned that they would taste supersweet, and not tart, like what we found when we visited Key West a few years back. But it was good and strong, served in a round short glass instead of the typical martini glass.

This was like Budweiser, but worse

The two beers that were available pretty much everywhere was Pilsen and Imperial. Cerveza (Spanish for beer) Imperial is known as the beer of Costa Rica. It’s rather like a glorified Budweiser, not much dimension to it. After a couple of bottles of Imperial, I quickly switched over to Pilsen and that was my drink of choice for the majority of the trip. Pilsen is kind of rich and has a lot of depth. It’s actually quite refreshing and I was surprised, since I don’t normally think that way about beer. I stuck with Imperial or Pilsen because they were the cheapest. Neither beer is anything great- it’s what you get when you don’t have a lot to spend.

Note the bottled water in the background; if you weren't drinking beer you were drinking bottled water.

Wherever you go in Costa Rica, you’ll see huge Cerveza Imperial posters, or brightly lit Imperial signs outside tiny Tico bars or restaurants, hotels, car repair places, etc. The motto in Costa Rica is “Pura Vida” which means pure life. Ticos (what Costa Ricans sometimes call themselves) generally take it easy, have a cold beer, and just chill out to escape the heat and humidity.

Beer never cost more than the equivalent of 2 U.S. dollars. An extra bonus- the bartenders don’t take tips. We left some coins on the table once and they never moved. Cheap beer means you can get some food too, which was usually beans and rice, or chicken and rice, or soup and rice. That doesn’t mean the food was bland, it was always delicious, just not a lot of variety between restaurants.

If you ever get the chance to visit Costa Rica, it is well worth it. It’s beautiful country and the people are very friendly and welcoming, even when there’s a language barrier. All you need to say is “Dos Imperial, por favor!”

The beer is a limited edition brew, comes in 750 mL bottles and looks a little fancier than your average beer, complete with a snazzy metallic label.

Samuel Adams has been brewing it since 2003 after pairing up with Swiss chocolate company Felchin. (The Swiss definitely know their chocolate.)

Chocolate Bock also tastes better than your average beer. With heavy chocolate notes, this beer should be paired with dessert or drink it alone (or maybe as dessert) and could be a great introductory for those who think they don’t like beer.

The only downside: You need to buy this one fast. Because it a limited edition, there are only so many bottles out there and they’re going quickly.

Here are a few places you can find it in the Nashua area:

• Jaspers Homebrew & Winemaking, 4 Temple St., Nashua.
• The Drink Shoppe, 214 Central St., Hudson.
• The Liquor Shop, 440 Middlesex Road, Tyngsborough, Mass.

 If you know of any more, feel free to post them below (or maybe you’d rather keep them to yourself.)

Magic Hat’s hoping you’ll do just that with its contest Footage of Fools. The contest goes hand-in-hand with the winter 12-pack, Feast of Fools, featuring the Odd Notion Winter brew, Braggot, along with Circus Boy, # 9 and Roxy Rolles.

The company is asking people 21 years and older to create a video featuring their concept of the “dog days” of winter. The video must have a dog and Magic Hat in it in some form.

The winner of the contest will get a Canon HV10 HDV camcorder. You can watch the videos on YouTube.

Oh yeah, and about the beer: Braggot was the only one in the 12 pack I hadn’t tried. I have yet to find a Magic Hat beer that I won’t drink, and the Braggot was no exception. The beer, which is a mix of mead and ale, was a crisp surprise for a winter brew, but it’s a big winner and a reminder of sandy beaches and warmer months as winter nears.

I recently got the chance to try the new 2007 Fat Bastard Chardonnay. I hadn’t tried anything by Fat Bastard before, but I had heard a lot of good things from other folks about this brand. I think I had gotten deterred by the name, and thought it was kind of ostentatious and rude.

But after tasting it, I think the name somehow works because it more describes the playful side of the wine. It’s certainly not negative. This wine is so easy to drink. I was having some difficulty figuring out the specific fruit notes though- information that came with the bottle mentions acacia flower and a clean citrus finish. Although I admit I don’t know what acacia flower tastes like in the first place, I got the citrus taste, and it is clean and crisp, but not overboard. The clean taste was what made me go back for more.

This chardonnay also has the right amount of dryness to it. There’s a bite, sometimes a bit strong, but okay. The bouquet was flowery and fruity with a bit of vanilla. And although it’s billed as fullbodied, I think the weight of it was more on the light side, which is appealing when you are drinking it with a lighter cheese or anything non-meat (makes sense).

Now that I’ve gotten over my this wine-must-be-weird-because-of-its-name thing, I plan to try a lot more Fat Bastard white wines to compare with this gem.

Almost every major company these days seems to have a line that donates proceeds toward the fight against breast cancer. Here’s another that’s joined in:

Photos of breast-cancer survivors adorn Cleavage Creek wine bottles. What a great idea!

Cleavage Creek Cellars is run by a California man, Budge Brown, who lost his wife of 48 years to breast cancer in 2005. He’s taken his anger and turned it into a line of wines, and he donates 10% of the sales toward research.

The line is now in its second year, with the second set having just been introduced this month. The new wines include a 2006 Reserve Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, a 2006 Reserve Napa Petite Sirah and a 2006 Reserve Cabernet-Sirah, as well as a 2006 Secret Red and a 2007 Secret White.

Each bottle of Cleavage Creek wine honors a breast-cancer survivor with a picture on the label. You can find their stories on the Cleavage Creek Web site.

To date, Cleavage Creek has donated more than $37,000 to research.

Know of any other wines or drinks that help out a good cause? Please share!

Patriot Homebrew IPA is what it says it is, a homebrew, but given a little corporate help from The Boston Beer Company, which makes Samuel Adams beers. Brewer Adam Walsh, of Massachusetts, entered his beer in the company’s Patriot Homebrew Contest and took the prize – not just $2,000, but the opportunity to see his beer poured for thousands at Gillette all season long. And what won was pure gold.

OK, mahogany, really, with a cherry red tinge in the light. Dark and rich, it’s hard to imagine a better color for a New England autumn. As an IPA, or India Pale Ale, it is wildly hoppy, but unlike a lot of IPAs, this one has a good balance. There is a lot of sweetish malt here to round off the flavor, so the bitterness has doesn’t just hover in the front of your mouth with nowhere to go. Plus a fragrant, slightly fruity nose invites sip after sip. And if the Pats don’t break their mediocre streak, it might invite beer after beer, too.

Sam Adams Patriot Homebrew IPA is available at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., for the 2008-09 football season.

Well, that, and the fact that I’d be surrounded by wine all afternoon.

It was a little early to be out at the Seacoast around 9 a.m. last Saturday. But it was a gorgeous New England fall day. I caught up with friends in the registration tent, and I was surprised to see maybe a hundred or 200 people in the tent by the time the day was about to start. I bought my $6 T-shirt (really, you can’t go wrong at that price), gathered my pruning shears, and I was good to go.

The employees brought us to one area of grapes where we were asked to start shearing. We were each given bins to fill with grapes. (It’s a good thing I’ve been working on my arms at the gym — those things got heavy quickly!) With so many people and only so many rows of grapes, it was almost amusing to see people race around to try to grab at more grapes.

After we finished the first section of grapes, we moved onto another type, and then a third. The third section was the most difficult to get at, as there were more leaves covering the grapes, and some of the fruit didn’t look as good as the first two sections, so we were in that area the longest finding the perfect fruit.

The atmosphere was great. Most people were really friendly and having great conversation. It was a great day to get pictures with your friends in a casual, relaxing environment. Only a few louder noises were made when people accidentally got clipped with the pruning shears (yup, I injured myself) or were stung by bees (that was me, too!).

The couple hours we were out working went by quickly. I couldn’t believe we had finished in such a short amount of time. But it was almost lunchtime at that point. I could smell food, but wasn’t exactly sure what was coming out of the kitchen.

Everyone was also given a commemorative wine glass to mark their participation in the event. Here is one of ours filled with the raspberry wine. (Thanks for the photo, Jen!)

In the meantime, we did — what else? — sample some wine. It took me a while to make my decision from the wine list, as well as because I was silently poking fun at the people in line who were ordering beer. (Hello?! You’re at a winery. Get wine.) I chose a glass of the strawberry wine, and what a great choice! It was so light and fun to drink. My pals at the table had bought some bottles of wine, choosing the raspberry and apple. The raspberry was a close second to the strawberry in taste, and the apple wine was very subtle and could probably be paired with a better variety of foods.

Then the food was ready to be served. YES! The meal consisted of delicious homemade rolls, cole slaw, pasta salad, bone-in chicken, and beef carved by the chef. Now THAT’S what I’m talking about. And not only did we get to fill up our plates with that, we also were given a great selection to choose from for dessery. I chose a slice of raspberry cheesecake, while some others at my table opted for the pumpkin, which was fantastic!

The day ended just as casually as it started. I popped in the store again to bring home a bottle of strawberry wine (about $11) to enjoy later, and I was ready to go home and nap.

Flag Hill is beautiful. The owner mentioned that weddings are being done there. (Maybe I should have looked at Seacoast locations when I was deciding where to hold my own upcoming wedding!) It would be a great backdrop for wedding day photos, too. And it would be fun to offer guests local wine.

I’m excited to go to more of these events in the future. Do you have one to recommend? Please share!

So when I got my hands on a bottle of Barefoot Wine’s new Barefoot Bubbly Chardonnay champagne, I decided to pop the cork on a Thursday night mid-September. The occasion? A full moon? Spike was playing a marathon of “CSI” episodes I’d never seen? I didn’t burn my homemade macs and cheese? Sure! Cheers!

For those of us who have no idea what makes champagne a Chardonnay champagne and find the world of Champagne vs. champagne confusing, I consulted my favorite little wine book, appropriately called “The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Wine.” (Who you callin’ an idiot?) My pint-size guide says that because the bubbly isn’t from the northern French region of Champagne, it’s a sparking wine, denoted by the lower case “c” in “champagne.” Got it. And it’s called Chardonnay champagne, because Barefoot used Chardonnay grapes to make the wine.

It becomes bubbly through the method the vintner uses to carbonate the wine. In Barefoot’s case, they use the tank method or Charmat method (named for the French dude who discovered this nifty technique). I know this because it’s written right on the bottle (smart! I know). “The Guide to Wine” says that the wine is put into a pressurized tank, and yeast and sugar are added to provoke a second fermentation, which produces the bubbles. Then the bubbly is bottled under pressure to keep it bubbly. Apparently, this is the most popular way to make sparking wines, as it’s the most inexpensive, and the bubbles last the longest. Perfect for a winery that wants to produce an affordable, long-lasting champagne that can be stored on supermarket shelves.

So, now I’m sure you’re like, “Bla, bla, bla. WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE?”

I’ve tasted everything from Andre (three bottles for $4, baby!) to Dom Perignon. To me, it’s all drinkable, but not my first alcholic beverage choice. However, Barefoot’s sparking Chardonnay is so mild and subtly sweet, that I actually enjoyed drinking it for the flavor, not for the “let’s all drink Champagne”-feeling of camaraderie. It’s not dry at all or have that kick-you-in-the-taste buds tartness, and it tastes more like a champagne-flavored Cleary Canadian (you know, that fruit-flavored soda) than a bottle of bubbly. The after taste is really pleasant and smooth.

The bottle tells me that this sparkling wine has the flavors of green apples, pears and a hint of vanilla. I can taste everything but the vanilla, but perhaps that’s the ingredient that smooths out the tartness of apples and pears and makes it incredibly drinkable. This is the kind of treat I’d buy to go along with apples, grapes, Camembert and a chick-flick comedy.

Maybe on a random Thursday night mid-October.

Democrats and Republicans are both winners with this wine, says Bob Dabrowski

Bob Dabrowski, of Candia Vineyards, recently sent me an e-mail regarding a celebration next week of his Presidential Red wine, seen at right.

It is taking place at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the Barley House, 132 N. Main St., Concord. Bob says, ”This is a major venue for political activity near the state house, and this should be a fun night.”

The Presidential Red is different from his Primary Red. Both were released just in time for our primary earlier this year. Bob believes these are the only wines of this kind in the U.S. — New Hampshire is the perfect place for it!

If you can’t make the celebration, you can still celebrate by bringing a bottle of Presidential Red home. Check out where to buy the wine here.